V. I. Lenin

Resolution of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee on Setting Up an Organisational Section of the C.C. to Direct Illegal Work{1}

Written:Written on April 2–4 (15–17), 1914Published:First published in 1957 in the magazineVoprosy Istorii KPSSNo. 3.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 41,

      pages330.2-331.1.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2004

      Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
      terms of theGNU Free Documentation License.

Inview of the conditions of secrecy, a special section of the
C. C. shall be set up to provide direct guidance in illegal organisational
work.

Generalmeetings of the C.C. sections shall be held only in case of
emergency, with special precautions of secrecy and only by agreement
between the representatives of both sections. Ordinary relations shall be
conducted through individual authorised persons.

Theorganisational section of the C.C. shall use the cover name of
Workers’ Co-operative Commission.

Thissection shall 1) direct the work of the St. Petersburg Committee,
systematically helping it and restoring it in the event of arrests; 2) see
that the work of all legal organisations is connected on Party lines; 3)
find especially strict forms of secrecy to cover up illegal ties and
undertakings; 4) unite work on the all-Russia scale, with regular contacts
and visiting rounds; 5) take charge mainly, of preparing a party congress
for August
1914.{2}

Theorganisational section shall be appointed by the Russian collegium
of the C.C. and shall consist of 3–5 persons with an equal or double
number of candidates.

{1}The Resolution on Setting up an Organisational Section of the Central
Committee to direct illegal work was adopted by the C.C. at its sittings
held in Cracow from April 2 to 4 (15 to 17), 1914, under Lenin’s direction
and with the participation of G. I. Petrovsky, representing the Bolshevik
Duma group, who had arrived from Russia. The C.C. examined the questions of
preparing for the convocation of the next R.S.D.L.P. congress, marking
Workers’ Press Day, work among the peasants, work in the Duma and report of
the Bolshevik Duma group, the International Women’s Conference, the Vienna
Congress of the Second International, preparation of leaflets for May Day,
etc.

Inconnection with the discussion of the question of setting up the
Organisational Section of the Central Committee to direct illegal Work and
the adoption of a resolution on this question, Lenin proposed that
prominent Party workers—among them M. I. Kalinin and A. S. Kiselyov—and
workers who took an active part in the insurance movement should be
included in the Section. Apart from the resolution published here, there is
also an outline of the agenda of the C.C. sittings worked out by Lenin. On
thequestion of the R.S.D.L.P. C.C. report to the Vienna Congress of the Second
International, the C.C. decided to “instruct the C.C. members abroad to
engage in drawing up the report”. This was done by Lenin. In April-May
1914, he wrote his “Plan and Outline for a Report of the
R.S.D.L.P. C.C. to the Vienna Congress of the Second International” (see
Fifth Russian edition of theCollected Works, Vol. 25,
pp. 441–44).

p. 330

{2}TheParty congresswas to be timed to coincide with the
International Socialist Congress in Vienna, set for August 1914. An
Organising Commission was set up under the Russian Collegium of the C.C. to
prepare for the congress. It was also decided to set up commissions in
Moscow, the Caucasus, the South and the Urals. The congress was to be
preceded by organisational tours of local Party organisations by
C.C. agents, and also by trips to the localities 14 the Bolshevik deputies
to the Duma. The preparations for the congress were especially intensive in
the spring and summer of 1914. The Agenda and even the composition of the
congress were determined. It was to discuss the following questions: =

reports of the C.C. and reports from the localities, the political
situation, the Party’s organisational tasks, the tasks of the strike
movement, the tactics of the insurance movement, some addenda to the
minimum programme, the national question, the liquidators in connection
with the conference under the I.S.B., participation in the bourgeois press
and other urgent problems of the time. By the end of July 1914,
preparations for the congress and elections to the International Socialist
Congress were almost complete. Most of the delegates were elected, the
instructions drawn up and the mandates collected. The technical
side—secret meeting places, routes and passports—was also ready. But
the outbreak of war and the wild reaction that followed worked a sharp
change in the situation in the country. The closure of the frontiers cut
off communications with all other countries. The congress was postponed
until a more favourable moment. Nor was the International Congress able to
meet in these circumstances. Although the Party congress did not take
place, preparation for it had a great part to play in strengthening and
consolidating the Party organisations.

p. 331